A woman who has always admired my jewelry was in the studio and told me that she had some pieces that she wasn’t wearing. She wanted to know if I could do something with an existing piece of jewelry that was made with a number of diamonds. I said, “Sure!”

To my surprise, she brought in an unbelievably long and graduated tennis-style diamond necklace. The necklace, as it turns out, had 150 diamonds. She had some very specific requests. She said that she was an active and professional person who wanted a dramatic every-day ring for her wedding finger. I had to smile because the elements were perfect for a ring that I had always wanted to make. I was thinking of a domed design completely encrusted with pave diamonds. The fact that the stones were of various sizes made the idea possible. I wouldn’t know if this design would work for sure until I started carving the wax.

As I carved the wax, the size of the dome grew and grew. I was happy with the fabulous ring that had emerged. But would she like it? I put the stones face down on the wax to get an idea of the actual spacing of the diamonds. I took the wax ring out under the lights of the studio lights, and even with the stones face down the ball of diamonds came to life. I called her immediately to have her look at my idea. Without hesitation she said that it was perfect!

She only had one question, “What would we do with the rest of the diamonds”? All of the stones that were left were in the back of the necklace, and all were of one size. I noticed that she had worn a pair of hoop earrings into the store before. The necklace had flexible joints at each stone and could be bent in a curve. I suggested that we make hoop earrings with the remaining diamonds.

The idea worked perfectly, and here you see the result, a wonderful set of fresh jewels.